Haight recycling a fight for soul of S.F.? Nah

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, December 2, 2010

People often talk so much about how hard it is to get anything built that we forget the other side of residential gridlock - it ain't that easy to get something removed in this city, either.

I am not the only one who has advocated closing the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council recycling center, but now, finally, with the help of a new generation of neighborhood activists, it really looks like it might happen.

The arguments in favor of shutting the place seem obvious. It's an ugly, noisy industrial plant, totally out of place in Golden Gate Park. Everyone loves recycling, but with bins in every driveway, getting in a car and driving to a center is counter-productive. It is a magnet for the down and out, some of whom use the can and bottle payout as an ATM for booze and drugs, and even raid the neighborhood bins to fill their carts. Not only has its day passed, but community gardens would be a much better use.

But that argument doesn't resonate with some. Instead, they see the closure as everything from an attack on the homeless to payback for the outcome of the recent election and runaway gentrification. Charlie Lamar, the recycling center's operations manager, calls it a skirmish "in the ongoing battle for the soul of the city."

Whew. And the Inner Sunset neighbors thought they were just trying to get rid of a noisy, messy eyesore on the edge of their beautiful city park.

"This was a local issue until about two weeks ago," said Andrea Jadwin, co-president of the Inner Sunset Park Neighbors. "Then it was hijacked by various political groups that have nothing to do with the issue."

It will all culminate today at what is expected to be a raucous Recreation and Park Commission meeting in City Hall. Representatives from both sides are already stocking up on pitchforks and torches.

"It should be quite theatrical," says Jadwin.

The recycling center's director, Ed Dunn, says he thinks Mayor Gavin Newsom is closing the center because it opposed the sit/lie legislation. That would make more sense if sit/lie had been torpedoed, but it won handily.

Even so, says Dunn.

"This is an effort to railroad this through in the waning days of the Newsom administration," he said. "What's the rush?"

That sound you heard was Recreation and Park Director Phil Ginsburg slapping himself on the forehead. What's the rush? This has been simmering for over a decade and the center has been on a month-to-month lease since 2001. Ginsburg reads from the Golden Gate Park Master Plan of 1998, which says, "The plan considers the recycling center a non-conforming use and should be phased out."

"So the idea that this is hitting them out of the blue is ridiculous," Ginsburg said.

Dunn also insists that it is an urban myth that homeless park campers raid neighborhood recycling bins to earn money. But the neighbors and Ginsburg agree with Sarah Ballard, director of the department's policy and public affairs, who calls the center, "a cash cow."

"I'm not blaming HANC for the crime," said Ginsburg, referring to the center, "but it ain't helping."

Public opinion isn't going the center's way, but don't count it out. When you call the roll of influential neighborhood groups in the city, the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council is at the top of the list. Formed in the 1960s to successfully stop a dumb idea - a six-lane highway through the Panhandle - the neighborhood group has been a political powerhouse.

But today, 18-year resident Jane Hart says she's seen a major shift in the neighborhood.

"In the last four to six years a whole new generation has moved into the Sunset," she said. "Young people with a college education that are into engagement. And there are a bunch of families with kids."

Meanwhile, the old neighborhood activists, like those in the council, are still opposing supermarkets, new housing, and a community garden to replace the recycling center.

"At one time they were like the Apple IIc," says Ginsburg. "The problem is, they are still the Apple IIc."

Dunn, a genuinely engaging guy, is still fighting the old battles. If they close the recycling center, he says, "I'll be down here getting arrested on the last day."

That's so '60s.

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